Fish treatment options

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n3wt

n3wt

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Mar 18, 2008
Messages
64
Location
Fl
I have a 55g tank with about 11 or so mixed Africans. I am not to familiar with many fish diseases and bacterias but it seems to be that some of my fish are suffering from a few different things maybe. My largest fish has some small black spots on him, I looked it up and it said it could be a bacteria living on his scaled and in the water. Also I have a fish that has a few spots on his fins and some spots on his gills along with a few other fish. I know it isn't ICH because I have had that a few times before and the spots are not little dots like ICH but just random shapes and sorts. I bought this General Cure product from API that supposibly cures a large array of diseases and bacteria in the tankbut haven't used it yet. I don't want to just start putting chemicals in the tank that may end up harming the fish and find out that the spots and marks on the fish are just little things that wont harm them their just harmless spots or something.
I wanted to get someones opinion that is more farmiliar with diseases or if putting the cure all products in the tank with no actual disease or bacteria can harm the fish because of the chemicals just floating arround in there.
 
It doesn't look like that, they are bigger than the picture and arent really circular dots. On my fish they are almost like clumps of those spots. But they aren't all over the fish they are only on a small section of his body, about a half inch behind his gills. Behind the fins. But it doesn't seem to be affecting the fish at all, the black stuff has been on him for a while now and he hasn't shown any weird symptoms or acted sickly or anything.

But a few of my other fish have something goin on with their fins. It's almost like a very very mild stage of finrot or something. Because I know it's not finrot because that looks nasty but it seems like small parts of their fins are deteriorating or something. Because only a small portion of the fin is funly looking not the whole fin is gone and part of the body too. Have any idea what that could be?
 
You didn't say how big the africans are, how long they have been in the tank, how long the tank has been set up, etc, etc.

That being said, don't start medicating a tank where no specific diagnosis has been made. If you don't already, you should be doing a 10-15 percent water change weekly on this tank. Despite what some may argue, it is nescessary for long term success. African cichlid tanks face failure from two basic problems. Water quality and diet deficiencies. If you have mbunas in your tank then a primarily meat diet will eventually do them in. The blotches you see may be something as inate as a species feature, many of the zebras and other fish display these blotches after maturity. Of course, we can only speculate on a forum without seeing the fish. It may be a melanin problem associated with diet. It is unlikely a parasite. It is not a bacterial infection. If you start seeing pustules or sores then you can think bacteria. However, the trick now is to put your environment into check.

Getting back to diet just for a moment. Wild fish live among rocky outcroppings, scraping the rocks almost continuously, eating small crustaceans and vegetable matter. There is no one throwing in a lab produced pellet or brine shrimp. You should offer your cichlids a spirulina based diet, fed very sparingly, often. Add to this newly hatched brine shrimp to simulate the small crustaceans and your fish will fare better than the usually prescribed meaty diet.

I would initially do a 30 percent water change. Stop feeding for a day. Then resume feeding and get on a weekly 10-15 percent water change.

Another thing to consider, the fish require a high mineral content in their water. I see you are in florida so if you are using tap water or well water from the aquifer you should be fine. But, if you are in a shallow well or are using R.O. water then this is innapropriate for long term success.

Hope some of this helps.

P.S. The organism described in the tang disease thingy is a marine organism.

Bill
 
Ok, The fish are a range of sizes, the biggest one is about 5-6", some are 4", and some are about 2-3". So I have a good range of fish in the tank now, mostly peacocks with a catfish, and one Mbuna and one eel. I have had the tank up and running for about 4 or 5 months with some of the original fish in there, Like my red shoulder peacock, venustis, and my Borlei. So some fish have been in there for months and some in there for a few weeks. But the tank should have fully cycled by now. I haven't put any medication in yet because as you were saying I don't want to just start dumping chemicals in there for no reason. I just put in soma aquarium salt every now and than to help the tank and fish out.

But as for their diet it could be that, it may be that I am overfeeding them because I do feed them a good amount of food every day. But what I am feeding them shouldn't be a problem because I buy my fish food from the guy I get all of my fish from, he breeds Africans and Koi, and he makes these special pellets. He knows just about everything when it comes to Africans so they must be good. But I also feed them frozen blood worms every now and then. Also for my spotted eel I go out and catch earth worms for him to eat and my fish get whats left over from what he eats. I haven't tried brine shrimp yet but my fish get a wide range of nutrition. And also, I don't know if it helps or anything, but I have algae flakes for my Pleco and I put one in there for the fish and one in there for my Pleco. So they get some algae in their diet too.

But it very well may just be some spots they get just from a species thing or being older fish because the spots are only on my bigger fish and I am just getting worried. But thanks for all of the advice. Might try some brine shrimp in there now.
 
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